Yaiba is a manga series written and illustrated by Gosho Aoyama. The manga was serialized in Weekly Shonen Sunday by Shogakukan from September 1988 to December 1993, with a total of 24 volumes. In 1993, Yaiba won the 38th Shogakukan Manga Award in the shonen category.

Yaiba was then adapted into an anime series named Kenyuu Densetsu Yaiba (Brave Sword Legend Yaiba), aired from April 1993 to April 1994 on TV Tokyo. The anime ran for 52 episodes and covered up to the Kaguya Arc.

The main character and protagonist of Yaiba is a little boy named Yaiba Kurogane, son of Kenjuuro Kurogane. He aims to become the greatest samurai in the world. The story of Yaiba started with a scene of Yaiba and his dad in the deep jungle.

For the sake of training, Yaiba had to stand still while holding up his wooden sword. He had to catch something or he would be starved. Kenjuuro was sitting next to his son, already caught his own meal. As Yaiba’s stomach started to grumble, he heard a rustling noise right behind him. “Here it comes” – Yaiba thought, a wide grin donned his face.

A giant gorilla jumped out from behind the tree and attacked Yaiba but was brought down almost instantly with one swing of Yaiba’s wooden sword. He hit the gorilla on the head, knocked it out cold then grilled it on the fire. The weak are eaten by the strong. Yaiba’s dad taught him so.

While they were eating the roasted beast, a tiger creeped closer and attempted to attack Yaiba from behind. He absentmindedly held up his sword and poked the tiger in the stomach. It growled in pain while Yaiba just turned around to look at the tiger. “What, just a tiger?”, Yaiba said, his face showed no sign of fear. “Don’t bother me during my meal”.

Just as Yaiba turned back to continue eating, the tiger attempted to attack him one more time. Unfortunately for the tiger, it failed again and landed face-first into the burning fire.

The fire was burning its tail and the tiger ran around in pain. Yaiba and Kenjuuro was about to catch the tiger and make it into stew when they discovered that a pack of gorilla had them surrounded.

Fearing that they would lose, Yaiba and Kenjuuro rode on the tiger and forced it to carry them away. Yaiba even threaten to eat the tiger if it didn’t run faster. The tiger immediately dashed ahead and the three of them successfully escaped the grasp of the gorilla.

They were hiding inside a wooden crate while a pile of pineapple was dropped on top of them.

It turned out that the crate, in which Yaiba, Kenjuuro and the poor tiger was hiding, was a pineapple crate designated to be shipped away. The workers came to close the crate and they were put on the plane heading to Japan.

At Narita airport in Tokyo, kendo master Raizo Mine just came back from an international kendo competition and was greeted by his daughter Sayaka Mine. It appeared that even though Raizo had won the competition, he would not be the true victor until he could defeat Kenjuuro. This hinted that despite of Kenjuuro’s carefree look, he was actually a very strong swordman.

That was when Yaiba and Kenjuuro crashed out of the pineapple crate and discovered that they were in Japan. Yaiba grabbed a flag pole nearby and fought off the police while they ran.

He saw Raizo on the way and swinged at him but Raizo dodged. “You are strong!” Yaiba excitedly shouted. Sayaka stepped in to defend her father, holding an umbrella like a sword and faced Yaiba.

It was the first time Yaiba has seen a girl so he forgot all about fighting and ran up to Sayaka. He hugged her and even flipped her skirt up. Sayaka got angry and hit him.

From behind, Kenjuuro caught up with his son and spotted Raizo. Raizo wanted to fight him to settle once and for all who was the strongest. However, Kenjuuro just grabbed him and all of them dashed out of the airport.

They hailed a taxi and Kenjuuro pointed the car to Raizo’s mansion. Meanwhile, Yaiba got excited because that was the first time that he has ever seen a car. After the whole journey, the tiger has gotten tamed and Yaiba started to treat him like a pet. Yaiba and the tiger rode on top of the taxi while the other cars behind them honked in fear as they saw a wild animal.

“I’m Yaiba Kurogane”, Yaiba turned back and shouted with a grin, “Come on! I’ll fight you!”

How will the trouble-maker Yaiba get used to Tokyo? What crazy adventures lie ahead?